Tokyo
Before you go
Visa
Indian passport holders need a visa for Japan, but since September 2025 tourists resident in India can use the JAPAN eVISA — a fully online single-entry short-stay visa applied for through a MOFA-accredited agency (verify the agency on the Embassy of Japan's site for your consular district). Budget ~₹500 in consular fees and 5–7 working days' processing, upload passport scan, photo, bank statements, ITR, and bookings — and note the visa issuance notice is shown on your phone (with a live internet connection) at the airport, so sort out roaming/eSIM before you fly.
Best time to visit
Late March–April (cherry blossom) and October–November (autumn colour, crisp 15–20°C days) are the best and busiest windows — book months out. May and September are excellent shoulder months. June is the rainy season, July–August hot and humid (33°C+, and Obon in mid-August is a domestic travel crush). Winter is cold but dry and clear — the best Mt. Fuji visibility of the year.
Getting around
Get an IC card — a Welcome Suica card at the airport, or add Suica to your phone's wallet — and tap through the metro and JR lines; rides mostly cost ¥180–260 and Google Maps' transit directions are flawlessly reliable here. Trains stop around midnight and taxis are expensive, so plan late nights around your last train. Stand left, walk right does not apply — Tokyo stands left and doesn't walk on escalators at all.
Currency
Japanese yen (JPY). Cards and IC-card payments cover most of the city now, but plenty of ramen shops (ticket-vending machines), shrines, and small izakaya remain cash-only — carry ¥10,000–20,000. 7-Eleven and post-office ATMs reliably accept Indian cards; skip exchanging more than a taxi-fare cushion at the airport.
Things to keep in mind
⚠ Never follow a bar tout in Shinjuku or Roppongi
Street touts around Kabukicho and Roppongi promising cheap drinks or 'free entry' funnel tourists into bars with inflated bills, forced 'service charges,' and — in documented cases — drink-spiking. It's the one serious tourist scam in an otherwise remarkably safe city: no legitimate Tokyo bar recruits on the street, so a firm no-thanks and keep walking covers it entirely.
⚠ Cash pockets and quiet trains
Enough small places are cash-only (ramen ticket machines, shrine stalls, old izakaya) that a cashless trip will strand you at exactly the best meals — keep ¥10,000+ on you. And the etiquette basics genuinely matter here: no phone calls or loud talk on trains, no eating while walking in shrine areas, queue where the platform markings say. Small effort, big goodwill.
Itineraries
These itineraries assume temperate-month pacing (March–May, September–November). In July–August heat, push the outdoor blocks — Senso-ji, Meiji Shrine, Tsukiji — to first thing in the morning and take the museum/arcade stops in the afternoon; in winter, the order works as written but sunset lands before 5pm.
Must / can / avoid
Photo by Maria P. on Unsplash
Senso-ji (Asakusa)
Tokyo's oldest temple: the Kaminarimon lantern gate, the Nakamise shopping lane, and the great hall with the Skytree looming behind — the city's past and present in one frame. Free, open-air, and mobbed by mid-morning; go before 9am or after dinner when it's lit and nearly empty.
Photo by Andrea Serini on Unsplash
Meiji Shrine & Harajuku
A forest of 100,000 donated trees swallows the city noise on the walk to the shrine — then you exit into Takeshita Street's peak-teen chaos and Omotesando's architecture. The hard cut between the two is the most Tokyo experience there is. Shrine is free, dawn-to-dusk.
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
Shibuya Crossing & Shibuya Sky
Cross the world's busiest scramble at street level, then watch it from 229 metres up — Shibuya Sky's open-air rooftop is the best paid view in Tokyo, and sunset slots sell out days ahead, so book online early. The crossing itself, Hachiko statue included, is free.
Photo by Tuan Nguyen on Unsplash
Tsukiji Outer Market
The wholesale inner market moved to Toyosu, but Tsukiji's outer lanes are still Tokyo's great breakfast: tamagoyaki off the grill, uni and tuna bowls, knife shops between them. Strictly a morning event — stalls wind down after lunch. Go hungry, before 9am.
Photo by note thanun on Unsplash
teamLab Planets
Wading barefoot through mirrored water rooms full of digital koi is exactly as surreal as the photos suggest — one of the few "Instagram famous" sights that over-delivers in person. Timed tickets sell out weeks ahead; book before your flight, not after landing.
Official tickets ↗External link — leaves Pack My Thepla; no partnership or commission on this one.
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash
Tokyo Skytree
Japan's tallest structure, with staggering reach on a clear day (Fuji included in winter) — but the decks are enclosed, queued, and less atmospheric than Shibuya Sky's open roof. Go if you're already in Asakusa and the sky is clear; don't cross town for it.
Photo by Shane Goh on Unsplash
Shinjuku Gyoen
The most beautiful landscaped park in central Tokyo — Japanese, English, and French gardens for a few hundred yen, and the premier hanami lawn in sakura season. A deliberate slow morning, not a checklist sprint; note it closes early evening and shuts Mondays.
Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash
Akihabara
Electric Town's anime billboards, retro-game floors, and multi-storey arcades are a genuine subculture pilgrimage if that's your thing — and still a worthwhile neon-soaked evening browse if it isn't. Skip the maid-café touts either way.
Tokyo Tower observation decks
The red tower is a lovely icon — from the outside. Its paid decks are lower and less impressive than Shibuya Sky or Skytree, and the free Tokyo Metropolitan Government building observatory in Shinjuku beats it for zero yen. Photograph it from Zojoji temple instead.
Owl, hedgehog & other exotic-animal cafés
The exotic-animal cafés clustered in Harajuku and Akihabara keep nocturnal and wild animals under café lights for tourist handling — a documented welfare problem, and tourist-priced on top. The same hour in an arcade or a proper coffee shop is better spent.